1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a guard for pulleys employed to support large industrial type sliding gates.
2. SUMMARY OF THE PRIOR ART
Large sliding gates are commonly employed in fences enclosing industrial or commercial complexes. Such gates are often not wide enough to permit two trucks to enter the gate concurrently, and accordingly, are of substantial weight. It is customary to support such gates by providing on the top and bottom edges of the gate structure, elongated supporting rods which respectively cooperate with the plurality of supporting pulleys which are rotatably mounted on horizontal stub shafts which are secured to horizontally spaced fixed gate posts.
There have been repeated instances where, due to distortion of the gates by minor accidents or by differential sinkage of one or more of the gates supporting posts, one of the supporting rods after a period of use can ride off one or more of the supporting pulleys and render the gate inoperative. Even more importantly, there have been repeated instances where the gate operator, or a spectator, has his hands resting on the supporting rod as the gate is opened or closed and his fingers are caught between a pulley and a cooperating supporting rod, resulting in a crushing injury.
Despite the fact that these problems have existed for many years, there has yet to appear on the market a protective housing for sliding gate pulleys that will overcome the aforementioned problems.